We've been in Thailand for nearly a week now and have only gotten a taste of what life is like here. For the first few days, after our training sessions, we were able to wander around the neighborhood near the OMF Bangkok Missions home. All around us there are dirty, run-down homes with stores in the front. It doesn't look very welcoming. But if you dare to look inside, you will likely find a warm and smiling Thai within. English is taught in all the government schools, but around the OMF Bangkok home, people know little more than "bye-bye" and "thank you," if anything at all.

Right now, we are in khao yai serving as child care workers at an OMF conference for he long term missionaries, so Our team has not yet visited the "poor village" near the place where we'll be living for the next few weeks, but I would dare say that the great tragedy is Thailand is not the poverty. The most heartbreaking part of this trip has not been seeing the squalor in which so many people live. It's not even close. To be Thai is to be Buddhist. They have nothing more to live for than, quite literally, nothing (Nirvana). When they smile at you, their faces radiate warmth and hospitality. And yet their souls wander about hopelessly in spiritual darkness because they don't have the gospel. That is what keeps you up at night. That is what makes you feel like someone is wringing the life out of your heart.

Prayer points:
-lovE and patience to care for the MKs
-time of renewal for the long term workers
-culture shock to pass
-more team unity and bonding